Dead Calm (1989)

Here’s a nice n’ solid suspense flick featuring a married couple (Nicole Kidman and Sam Neil) cruising the open ocean on reprieve after the tragic death of their infant son. After a week or so on the ocean, they come across a sinking boat and a lone survivor (Billy Zane), who seems to be acting just a wee bit odd. Zane insists that everyone on the boat died of food poisoning, killing off the ship’s entire crew. Sam Neil gets curious, locks the nutty bugger up in the cabin while he’s sleeping and decides to take a look see. Hmm. Lesson one to be learned from this film. If you come across a possible psycho on the open ocean, don’t leave him alone with your gorgeous wife as you go and investigate the psycho’s “sinking ship”. Sam Neil does, and boy was that a big mistake. Kidman must now play cat and mouse with Zane as Neil attempts to catch up to his wife before it’s to late.

Dead Calm works thanks to the believability of all the characters, combined with the overall simplicity of it all. Kidman is perfectly believable (and super sexy) as the grieving young mother who must now deal with a psycho on board while her husband is adrift on a sinking yacht. Neil and Kidman gel together perfectly as a truly loving couple, and the scenes of Neil struggling to salvage the doomed yacht and go after his wife are just as tense as Kidman’s scenes with Zane. It’s sort of a “put yourself in his shoes” situation, and the viewer really comes to root for big Sam. Actor Billy Zane plays the psycho, a “misunderstood” art type whose sense of reality is, shall we say, slightly skewed. Director Phillip Noyce, while succumbing to the occasional stalk n’ slash clichés, shows he’s perfectly capable of creating high suspense. The scenes between Kidman and Zane are perfect cat and mouse stuff, though Noyce does resort to several clichés from time to time. For example, Kidman has several shots at killing Zane, yet she opts to tie him up with rope instead, promising his eventual escape so the movie can continue. There’s also the obligatory “twist” ending, but these complaints are minor. Good stuff overall, and recommended for a watch.